By Kachi Okezie, Esq.
Jeremy Doku’s situation is simple, human, and entirely understandable. His wife, Shireen, is expecting their first child in the second week of July, precisely when Belgium could be deep into a World Cup run. Doku has made it clear that if the birth coincides with the tournament, he will briefly leave the national team, fly home, be present for the arrival of his child, and then return. Any decent parent immediately understands why.
The hours before a first birth are filled with anxiety, anticipation, and responsibility. The delivery room is not a spectator event. It is one of the most consequential moments in a family’s life. Football is a profession, even a prestigious one. Fatherhood is a permanent obligation. Asking a young man to choose between the two is harsh enough. Ridiculing him for choosing his family is far worse.
That ridicule reportedly came from L’Equipe presenter France Pierron, who described Doku’s decision as a “disgusting moment,” declared that “the father is useless,” and argued that “you are not going to cut an umbilical cord, you can’t miss a World Cup.” She reportedly continued by warning that he would “waste 10 hours,” return exhausted, and suffer an “emotional meltdown,” before dismissively concluding that “your baby will always be there.” If those comments were made as reported, they are not just insensitive; they are contemptible.
The football argument collapses almost immediately. Belgium’s coaching staff knew the circumstances before selecting Doku. Modern football already accommodates paternity leave. FIFA competitions have survived players attending births before and will survive them again. Missing several hours does not derail a World Cup campaign. Elite squads are built precisely to absorb temporary absences.
What is remarkable is how casually some pundits demand sacrifices from players that they would never accept in their own lives.
A World Cup quarter-final is important. Watching your first child enter the world is irreplaceable. One can be replayed forever. The other happens exactly once.
Then there is the human dimension, which Pierron’s remarks seem determined to ignore. Shireen is not merely delivering a baby; she is undergoing one of the most physically and emotionally demanding experiences of her life. The idea that a father is “useless” unless he is performing a medical procedure reveals a staggeringly narrow understanding of parenthood.
A father is there to support his partner. He is there to share responsibility. He is there because showing up matters. Presence is not measured by whether someone cuts an umbilical cord. It is measured by whether they stand beside the people who need them when it counts.
Reducing fatherhood to biological trivia while dismissing emotional support as irrelevant is not modern, progressive, or enlightened. It is an astonishingly outdated view of family life.
But there is another layer to this controversy that should not be ignored. For decades, Black fathers have been burdened by stereotypes portraying them as absent, disengaged, or indifferent. Popular media, entertainment, and commentary have repeatedly reinforced the notion that Black fatherhood is somehow deficient or disposable. Those narratives have had real social consequences. That is why the language employed here matters.
When a young Black athlete chooses to prioritise being present at the birth of his child and is met with claims that fathers are “useless,” the criticism lands in a wider historical context. Whether Pierron consciously intended that implication is ultimately beside the point. Public commentary does not exist in a vacuum. Words carry baggage. Labels carry history.
Doku is being criticised for doing precisely what society routinely claims it wants more fathers to do: be present, be responsible, and be involved from the very beginning. The contradiction is impossible to miss.
More broadly, the episode exposes a strain of modern sports culture that borders on the unhealthy. Athletes are expected to surrender everything to the spectacle. Family becomes a distraction. Parenthood becomes an inconvenience. Human emotion becomes weakness. The player ceases to be a person and becomes a national asset whose private life is expected to stop for the duration of a tournament. That mentality is not dedication. It is dehumanisation.
The suggestion that a man should willingly miss the birth of his first child because a football match matters more is not evidence of commitment. It is evidence of distorted priorities. Doku’s decision demonstrates something many commentators seem to have forgotten: there are things in life bigger than sport.
Belgium will survive without him for a few hours. The tournament will continue. The television panels will move on to the next controversy. What will remain is the memory of whether he was there when his family needed him most.
That is why Pierron’s remarks deserve more than disagreement. They deserve condemnation. Not because football should be unimportant, but because fatherhood should never be treated as disposable.
The baby will arrive whether the pundits approve or not. Doku will hold that child exactly once for the first time. And long after the World Cup has faded into statistics and highlights, that moment will still matter. The comments mocking it will simply stand as a reminder of how detached and divisive parts of modern sports media have become from ordinary human values.
